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So I am honestly loving a lot of this class right now. A few balancing tweaks (Str builds shouldn't be inherently worse than Dex builds) and they'll be fantastic. My personal biggest concern with it though is one that I have not seen brought up yet, and that is that if I am creating an Exemplar, I need a lot more options for gaining a title for the type of hero they could be.
Looking at the Dominion Epithets especially, as cool as the titles are, those feel like titles that should be entirely unique to each Exemplar. Born of the Bones of the Earth is super cool, but what if my Exemplar's legend grew when he reaches into the body of a raging fire elemental to wrench it's core out? Then I'm going to want my title to be something like "Arm Forged in Fire" or something like that.
We have a lightning Epithet. No reason we couldn't allow fire or cold damage.
Personally, I think that the Root Epithets are fine as is, since they're just one-word adjectives for a single heroic trait, and even the Sovereignty Epithets are probably okay since they more describe the overall archetype of hero you were, but for the Dominion Epithet, I think we should be able to write our own in a sense.
From a mechanical sense, it would give the option of a few different Immanence and Transcendence abilities that are paired together that you can pick, and also lets you choose a damage type that you can replace spirit damage with (with maybe some small incentive to pick Bludgeoning, Slashing, or Piercing, since those would inherently be less desirable when they are choices on their own. Then you pick an Epithet that goes with that ability, while providing a list of options but also the encouragement to write your own.
My hero of the frozen north might picks something like "He Who Comes on Frozen Winds".
I will say that I think this is a pretty easy "at the table" fix with a GM who isn't a meanie, but I agree that adding this sort of "build your own" could be interesting. The one possible risk is that a lot of the epithets are VERY heavily flavor oriented, and making an epithet pick-and-match would likely make them a lot more bland in order to facilitate the variety.
They did say that there will be more epithets in the full release, so hopefully they get enough to cover pretty broad swaths of options/themes.
I'll quote this very recent blog post from Michael Sayre:
Will the exemplar get more ikons and epithets? The exemplar will definitely see new ikons post-playtest, and the chances of new epithets are pretty high, though we’re still sifting through data about the degree to which these mechanics are working for folks. The final form that epithets take based on your feedback might have some influence on how many are published in the final product.
The fact that we have only a lightning epithet means that they wanted to playtest something like that; it doesn't mean that they don't plan to add other similar options, especially if such design is well received.
I'll quote this very recent blog post from Michael Sayre:
Will the exemplar get more ikons and epithets? The exemplar will definitely see new ikons post-playtest, and the chances of new epithets are pretty high, though we’re still sifting through data about the degree to which these mechanics are working for folks. The final form that epithets take based on your feedback might have some influence on how many are published in the final product.The fact that we have only a lightning epithet means that they wanted to playtest something like that; it doesn't mean that they don't plan to add other similar options, especially if such design is well received.
While this is definitely good, I feel that it is somewhat missing the point. I don't necessarily think we need a fire or cold epithet specifically. Rather I feel that we should have more free-flowing epithets where you pick a damage type in general as well as an imminence/transcendence, and then give yourself your own title.
I think it fundamentally takes away from the Dominion Epithet (and somewhat the Sovereignty one, but to a lesser degree) if there are several other Exemplars running around with the same legendary epithet. When Not-Zeus has the epithet "Whose Cry is Thunder!" it suddenly becomes way less interesting for both when Thorn't also has the same title unto his name.
I want to write my own Dominion Epithet based on the deeds of my character, and thematically that opens up the door for a build-your own epithet concept where you mix and match different damage types with different ikon abilities.
This way you wouldn't need a specific cold or fire epithet (which would run the risk of being mechanically bad, like the current water one seems to be), you'd just need to write up the different ikon abilities and allow people to slap whatever damage type they want on it. Then give a bit of guidance for what a good Dominion epithet should sound like along with a list of suggestions. Perhaps you mix the electric damage one with the martial skill one (the one that gives critical specialization and Reap the Feald) and the name recommended by the book is something like "Blade Swift as Lightning" or the like.
It would absolutely be something that would put a different kind of expectation on the player that other classes don't have, but it IS a Rare class and that could just be part of that, plus it would be helped out a decent bit by having a list of title suggestions.
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Well, sure, but you can just reflavor the name of the epithet and unless there's another Exemplar in your party that picked the same stuff - your table's Golarion may not have another Exemplar in the world that has "Whose Cry Is Thunder".
I think having bespoke ones to pick from helps to cut down on both page count and allows for more curated packages, to allow for the designers to balance as they will and lessen the possibility of broken combinations.
Also, we have several deities of the Sun. Why not several Exemplars Whose cry is thunder ?
We may have several deities of the sun, but we only have one "The Dawnflower". I'm totally fine with having multiple thunder, lightning, and storm based exemplars, but they should have different titles that represent their heroics and stories specifically.
Using the same two deities I used before as examples, "Whose Cry is Thunder" fits Thor very well but doesn't actually make a lot of sense for Zeus.
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Also, we have several deities of the Sun. Why not several Exemplars Whose cry is thunder ?We may have several deities of the sun, but we only have one "The Dawnflower". I'm totally fine with having multiple thunder, lightning, and storm based exemplars, but they should have different titles that represent their heroics and stories specifically.
Using the same two deities I used before as examples, "Whose Cry is Thunder" fits Thor very well but doesn't actually make a lot of sense for Zeus.
Yeah, I just think you reflavor the name - I don't necessarily think we need different mechanics. Page count is a huge limiter in a lot of this, too - Kineticist could do what it did because it was the only class in its book, for example.